What is web hosting,what is hosting,web hosting,web hosting companies,India,UK

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This page discusses - What is web hosting,what is hosting,web hosting,web hosting companies,India,UK

What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service provided by big companies to
host the web site, the hosted site is accessible one the internet. In fact they provide online
systems for storing information, images, video, or any content to the users. The
content is then become accessible on the internet. The companies providing the
space on the internet is called Web Hosts or Web Hosting companies.
Web Hosts usually installs many computer in the data centers powered by UPS
backups. These computers are connected to the high speed internet by fiber optics
connectivity.

Different Level of Web Hosting There are three level of hosting

Shared Hosting (Virtual Hosting)Servers are expensive so hosting service provider shares the sever space
to host many sites on the same machine. So the one server servers many web
sites. Usually on one server 1,000 web sites can be hosted. This makes web
hosting affordable because you pay a portion of the server fee instead of
the entire server. Over 95% of websites of the internet are hosted on shared
hosting environment.

Shared hosting is an economical, flexible Web solution for both individuals
and small- to medium-sized businesses looking to establish an online
presence through static, personal and "test" Web sites.

Dedicated ServerIf you planning to host big application on the internet in that case you
need a full server for running the application. In this case you are using
the Dedicated Sever (server dedicated to your web site only).

Server Co-LocationIn some cases you can buy your own sever and setup the applications
according to your requirement and place the your server on some ISP with
high speed internet connection. This is called Co-Location hosting.

Which is better - Linux
or Windows?

We are often asked which hosting platform one should
choose: Linux or Windows. Below, we've listed the major differences between
the two that you should consider in making your decision. In the process, we
have also tried to dispel any common misconceptions regarding these platforms.
Generally, we recommend to use Linux, unless they need specific
features/applications only available on the Windows platform.

Reliability
The general consensus is that Linux is more reliable and our experience also
shows this. We have had servers up for over one year without any downtime.
Microsoft's Windows 2000 is much more stable and reliable than previous
versions, but there are still cases where a server will require a reboot to
resolve an issue.

Functionality
This is where these two platforms differ the most. There isn't much that can be
achieved using one platform that can't be done on the other one. The main
difference are the underlying technologies. For example, if you need a database
driven web site, you can choose either PHP/MySQL combination under Linux or
ASP/MS SQL combination under Windows®2000.

Security
Out of the box, neither Linux or Windows is very secure for Internet use. So
some modification is required to make it secure.

Price
Linux holds an edge due to the fact that the most of the software we use is open
source (free) and that it's easier to maintain Linux servers than Windows
servers for the same level of reliability and performance. On Linux apache web
server is nearly bullet proof and it is very stable and gives high performance.

Hosting Choice
When it comes to Web hosting, Linux has, for some time, been widely considered
the best OS for Web servers. It's typically found to be the most reliable,
stable and efficient system and, as such, it's commonly used for the demanding
environment of Web and mail servers. If you use PHP, Perl or MySQL, Linux is the
way forward. If apps are Microsoft-specific, then Windows is what you need. But
the fact that over 75 per cent of all sites are hosted on a Unix platform tells
you something.

Speed
There is no difference in terms of speed between the two platforms.

File Types
Almost all the file types are supported on Linux web server. Commonly, the
following extensions are supported:
.cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .asp (requires additional plug-in), .xml,
and others. Basically it means that you can host web sites that use different
types of server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and .asp (with plug-in).

Easy to move to other Hosts
A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a
Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true. This
provides flexibility in changing hosts as required.

Scalability
Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows over a period of
time to suit the customers requirements. It is preferable to design a web site
keeping this requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a
Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without
making any site wide design changes.

Features you should consider while
choosing the Web Hosting Companies:

Select the Hosting plan having SSL
support.

Your plan should have the support
for shell (telnet or SSH) access to your account and the FTP access.

You should have access to raw logs and
stats for figuring, this will help in understanding the statistics of your
visitors